The one-room apartment in the basement of a brick building was shaped like a perfect square and had its own entrance. A large, sparsely furnished, mirrorless room. The first thing a casual visitor would see was the foot end of an IKEA bed with a white frame, carefully crammed into the left corner of the apartment and positioned so that the person lying in bed only had to lift their head to see the front door. On the other side of the bed, a spotless pine dresser joined seamlessly, the drawers facing forward and forming a perfect ninety-degree angle with the back wall and headboard of the bed. At first glance, it might have seemed like a vague attempt at feng shui. But the person who lived here was not interested in such foolishness.
If one went a little further into the room, they would see, opposite the bed on the right, the small ceramic sink and the gas stove with the two cooking rings that together formed the kitchen. You might also notice that everything was spotlessly clean as if every square inch was sprayed, rinsed, and mopped daily. The bathroom sparkled as if it was scrubbed after each use. It contained only a toilet and one of those fiberglass shower pan units that unquestionably replaced the cast-iron claw-foot tub that the brick house's builder originally had installed. To the tenant, the presence of this ... thing in such a place smelled like the rash act of a miserly bungler, an eye-popping imperfection in a place otherwise perfect for his needs. But for the moment, it was just one more sin, committed by one more sinner in a world where there was too much of both. He had more important things to worry about.
Next to the bathroom was the door to the apartment's only closet, which when opened looked as modest as the closets in most antebellum buildings. All the clothes hung on hangers of the same kind, made of light wood, the distance between each hanger being the same. The tenant's wardrobe consisted of neatly ironed white oxford shirts, khakis, and a black suit. If one added to this the simplicity of the furniture, one could conclude that the tenant wanted simplicity and didn't want to be subjected to the additional pressure of having to decide every day what to wear. Who didn't care a lot about worldly possessions or physical pleasures.
And one would be right. For what interested him, and too because drove him mad, were the thoughts that ran through his head.
He had taken the apartment on conditions that the landlord wouldn't enter it without a day's notice. He even insisted on including those conditions in the contract, which of course immediately made the landlord suspicious, until, without batting an eye, he gave the latter three months' rent in advance and two as a deposit. That, in turn, made the landlord immediately sign the lease, ensuring that the tenant's stipulation about prying, unwanted looks would be respected.
He was counting on it. He had to. After all, who would understand adult writing words on the wall? Police had found inscribed walls in the apartment of David Berkowitz, the infamous 'Son of Sam' serial killer, and they didn't understand.
No cop would ever get to see his writings. At least not as long as he lived. Of that he was sure. He vowed to protect this, his creation, at all costs. Even if he had to paint over it.
Now, alone in his sanctuary, he finished the latest contribution to his work and sniffed his black Magic Marker once more before putting the cap on it. He loved the heady smell. He had collected Magic Markers as a child and owned one in every color: brown, blue, red, orange, purple, green - even yellow. The yellow one was his trophy. He never saw anyone use a yellow Magic Marker. Then one day his mother had thrown them away because he drew 'nasty, sick, perverted' pictures on the wall of his room. He smiled when he thought about it. He had used the yellow marker for their private parts. His mother painted over the pictures of the women he had made when he was twelve because magic marker doesn't wash off.
It's permanent, he thought and took a step back to admire his work. He added two words FIGHT CHORIST, to the dozens of words he had already written neatly, one above the other, on the wall. He looked with a smile at EMPORE FACTUAL, KOREA SHIMPLE, and KASHMIR BANGS, at the top of the list.
Even if the word combinations would have seemed meaningless to others, they reassured him, because only he knew their meaning.
Because they made sense, didn't they? After all, it was the alphabet itself that made no sense. It was just a long string of letters waiting to become words, sentences, and thoughts. Individual letters could be paired, you could add more letters to make words, just like a delicious recipe. He also loved to cook, putting different ingredients together to make a tasty stew or a casserole with a tender crust. Just like with the letters of the alphabet, only ingredients were unsatisfying. But the right combination of letters or ingredients brought order to the chaos of his life. The words on his wall or the cinnamon aroma of the apple pie he had baked earlier calmed his mind and temporarily brought even more perfection to a flawless world in the making.
Order, perfection, flawlessness. He pondered these words, as he often did because they were exactly what he was striving for in the randomness of his life and what, for one reason or another, he had never been able to grasp.
Until now.
He reached for his favorite yellow marker and wrote two words over the other couple, outlining the letters in brown so that they glowed almost gold in the glow of the bare bulb that lit the room. ASTHMA ENTRY.
Then he turned to the wall on the left, the one he knew everyone would be talking about someday. Again he admired his work: a grid of meticulously drawn boxes, arranged high and across like a blank crossword, With the help of a ruler and a black marker, he neatly finished the last box in the lower right corner. He had waited longer for this day than he had realized. When the grid was full of those random letters, finally arranged into words, it would be his masterpiece. The work of his life, completed. And he knew, with those last strokes of the Magic Marker, it was time to begin.
He crossed the room to his small kitchen and picked up a brown envelope he had placed on the stove. He turned on the gas burner and watched the blue and yellow flames dance before his eyes, beckoning him. He opened the envelope and poured the contents into his hand: perfectly cut, one-inch squares of a photograph, which he then tossed over the flame. The fire lambasted the pieces of paper, an eye, an upper lip, a nose, consuming them until nothing but a pile of gray ash remained.
Satisfied, he turned off the burner and retrieved two large pots from a base cabinet. Then he removed from a drawer a rolled-up piece of cloth from which protruded the handles of knives, a cleaver, and a large pair of scissors. From the top shelf of the closet, he pulled out a sleeping bag, a small canvas tent, and an air mattress, all neatly folded. He had always enjoyed being outside, and tonight he would sleep under the stars.
After he had finished what he had to do. And which, he knew beyond a doubt, would free him from the unbearable fear he had felt all his life.
Free him forever.